History of StrawberryA Research

Report By Allah Dad Khan

234 BC

The history goes back over 2,200 years. The growth of wild strawberries in Italy can be traced back to 234 BC.

23-79 AD

Latin writers such as Apulius had cited the strawberry for its medicative purposes. Other writers such as Virgil and Ovid mentioned strawberry only in association with other wild fruits. Pliny (23-79 A.D.) was the last-known writer to mention this fruit.

1300 AD

By the 1300's the strawberry was in cultivation in Europe, when the French began transplanting the wood strawberry (Fragaria vesca) from the wilderness to the garde

1300 AD Strawberry was in

cultivation in Europe by the 1300s, as the French began transplanting the wood variety to the garden.

1364-1380 AD Charles V, France's

king from 1364 to 1380, had 1,200 strawberry plants in his royal garden

1400 AD European monks start

using strawberries for their illuminated manuscripts.

The religious artists of the 1400 loved the wild European strawberry.

1454 AD

The first documented botanical illustration of a strawberry plant appeared as a figure in Herbaries in 1454.

1455-1516 AD

When we speak of medieval art we mean religious art, but we have one notable exception in the "Garden of Delights," or "Strawberry Tree“as it was first called, by the Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch (1455-1516).

1483 AD Shakespeare

the Duke of Gloucester asks the Bishop of Ely in Act III, Scene iv, of Shakespeare's tragedy Richard HI of 1597, and the strawberries were sent for on June 13, 1483, according to Shakespeare authorities.

1500 AD

At the end of the 1500's the musky strawberry (Fragaria moschata) was also being cultivated in European gardens. 

By the mid-1500’s, demand for strawberries was growing, evidenced by the first written instructions for growing and harvesting strawberries in 1578.

1500 AD

1500s – Cultivation of the strawberry became more common. People began using it for its supposed medicinal properties.

1526 AD

. The Crete Herball appeared in London in 1526 as an English translation from the French work on the medicinal uses of herbs and was printed by Peter Treveris. Here is the description of "The Fragaria. Strawberyes"

1536 AD

Ruellius, a botanist of the period, also referred to the cultivation of strawberries in his De Natura Stirpium Libri (1536). Describing them as

"growing wild in shady places," he also notes that "gardens furnish a larger fruit

1538 AD

The English "strawberry" comes from the Anglo-Saxon "streoberie" not spelled in the modern fashion until 1538.

1562 AD

In France in 1562, Bruyerin-Champier, physician to Henry IV, included the strawberry among the plants which had recently entered French gardens.

1583 AD

Caesalpinus, in his De Plantis (Florence, 1583), described a subspecies of F. viridis which he had found in the Bargemon Alps of France and which he called Fragaria bifera because it bore both spring and summer fruits.

1588 AD

1588 – Strawberries were discovered in Virginia by the first Europeans when their ships landed there.

1593 AD By the end of the

century the strawberry's

popularity was general. Hyll gave the final evaluation in the Gardener's Labyrinth (1593):

1600 AD

Then, in the 1600’s, the Virginia strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) of North America reached Europe. The spread of this new relatively hardy species was very gradual and it remained little appreciated until the end of the 1700’s and early 1800's when it was popular in England. At that time, English gardeners worked to raise new varieties from seed and they increased the number of varieties from three to nearly thirty.

1610-1643 AD

An American strawberry, Fragaria americana, was cited in 1624 by Jean and Vespasien Robin, botanists to Louis XIII, in their Manuel Abrégé des plantes.

1656 AD

In 1656 John Tradescant noted a Fragaria nova anglia nondum descripta in the catalogue of his plant collection, Musaeum Tradescantianum, published in London

1700 AD

✦ Many new varieties of the strawberry were developed in the 1700s, in North America. The varieties that developed from the cross breeding of American and European strawberries were known for their sweet taste and perfect size.

1700 AD

In the early 1700s, a French spy spotted this strawberry genotype in Chile while he was making maps of Spanish forts. Plants of this genotype produced really big berries—larger than the spy had ever seen—so he brought a bunch of them back to France. 

1712 AD

Fragaria chiloensis is a wild species of strawberry native to Chili. It bears berries the size of walnuts. It, too, was taken to France but in 1712. 

1714 AD

Meanwhile, a French spy brought the Chilean strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis) from Chile to France in 1714

1717 AD

It was this description, quoted here from the 1717 English translation of

Frézier's book, which was to fascinate European botanists and gardeners.

1738 AD

In 1738 Linnaeus identified it in the garden of George Clifford, a wealthy banker

who had a large botanical collection in Amsterdam. Langley had a good engraving made of its flowers and fruits with an accompanying description in his Pomone, published in London in 1729.

1750 AD

In North Ameica and Europe the large fruited strawberry was based on American Varities combine byEuropeans in 1750

1760-1770 AD

Large fruited strawberry , which was commonly called pine or Ananas , to the American Colonies in 1760-1770.

1760 AD

Fortunately, the history of the domestic berry begins only in 1760, and therefore we know more about this plant's history than we do about most other organisms.

1766 AD

It was discovered in 1766 that the female plants could only be pollinated by plants that produced large fruit: F. moschata, F. virginiana, and F. ananassa. This is when the Europeans became aware that plants had the ability to produce male-only or female-only flowers. As more large-fruit producing plants were cultivated the Chilean strawberry slowly decreased in population in Europe, except for around Brest where the Chilean strawberry thrived. The decline of the Chilean strawberry was caused by F. ananassa

1800 AD

✦ Commercial strawberry production began in 1800.

1834 AD

Hovey’ was the name of the first American strawberry variety that resulted from a planned cross, and it is an ancestor of most modern varieties.  It was developed by Charles Hovey, a nurseryman in Cambridge, MA, in 1834.

1840 AD

Only selections of the native Fragaria virginiana were raised till 1840.

1851 AD

in 1851 by James Wilson who selected it from a cross of ‘Hovey’ grown with other varieties. This variety was more productive, firmer and hardier than any other large-fruited variety, and could be grown on nearly any soil. It was also perfect-flowered, so it could be grown by itself without another variety for pollination. Wilson changed the strawberry into a major crop grown all across the continent; the strawberry industry soon increased 50-fold, to one hundred thousand acres.

1643 AD

1643 – Early settlers in Massachusetts enjoyed eating strawberries grown by local American Indians who cultivated strawberries.

1835 AD

1835 – First American strawberries were cultivated.

1858 AD

✦ In 1858, the native Virginian varieties were being replaced by Wilson (a hard and large-fruited strawberry).

1855 AD

Vilmorin-Andrieux (1885) makes a distinction between Wild or Wood Strawberries (Fragaria vesca) and Alpine Strawberries (Fragaria alpina), a distinction which is not made by most seed companies or nurseries, which usually sell Fragaria vesca as “Alpine strawberry

1900 AD

1900’s – California began growing strawberries and now produces 80 percent of the strawberries in the U.S., amounting to one billion pounds of strawberries a year!

1909 AD

About 1909 the variety ‘Howard 17’ was introduced by E.C. Howard of Belchertown, MA.  It had tolerance to leaf spot, leaf scorch and virus diseases and it formed many crowns with early flower bud initiation. For decades it was important for commercial use and breeding. 

1943 AD

Félicien Lesourd in 1943 said its distribution spread from England as far as Finland and that although it was then very rare, it was still cultivated for its excellent, lightly musky aroma despite the infertility due to its unisexual character.

2001 AD

Research published in 2001 showed that strawberries actually occur in three basic flowering habits: short-day, long-day, and day-neutral. These refer to the day-length sensitivity of the plant and the type of photoperiod that induces flower formation. Day-neutral cultivars produce flowers regardless of the photoperio